Blue Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek wins Ford C. Frick award

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - Tom Cheek, the original and long-time voice of the Toronto Blue Jays, has been awarded the 2013 Ford C. Frick award for broadcasting excellence by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Cheek called the first 4,306 regular-season and 41 post-season games in Blue Jays history, beginning with Toronto's inaugural season in 1977.

His call of Joe Carter's championship-winning home run in the 1993 World Series — "Touch 'em all Joe! You'll never hit a bigger home run in your life." — highlighted a career that saw Cheek chronicle the Jays' rise from struggling expansion team to back-to-back world champions.

Cheek, who died on Oct. 9, 2005, will be honoured as part of Hall of Fame Weekend 2013 July 26-29 in Cooperstown. Cheek becomes the second Frick Award winner whose career came primarily with a Canadian team, following former Expos broadcaster Dave Van Horne's selection in 2011.

"Tom Cheek was the voice of summer for generations of baseball fans in Canada and beyond," Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson said in a statement. "He helped a nation understand the elements of the game and swoon for the summer excitement that the expansion franchise brought a hockey-crazed nation starting in the late 1970s. He then authored the vocal narrative of a team that evolved into one of the most consistent clubs of the 1980s and 1990s.

Born June 13, 1939, in Pensacola, Fla., Cheek began work as a backup announcer to Van Horne on Expos broadcasts.

In 1976 he landed the job as the radio voice of the expansion Blue Jays. Paired first with Hall of Fame pitcher Early Wynn and later with Jerry Howarth starting in 1981, Cheek's baritone voice became a hallmark of summer in Toronto.

Cheek called every regular season and post-season Blue Jays game from April 7, 1977 through June 2, 2004. The next day, Cheek took the first of two days off to attend the funeral of his father. But upon his return, Cheek sensed he was not right physically when he was unable to retain information he had read only minutes earlier.

On June 13, 2004 – his 65th birthday – Cheek underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour, but some of the tumour was unreachable.

Cheek died a little more than a year later.

Cheek was inducted into the Blue Jays Level of Excellence in 2005. That same year, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame established the Tom Cheek Media Leadership Award, with Cheek being honoured with the first award.